JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 JEA crews headed north Friday morning to assist with potential power restoration efforts as a major winter storm threatens the eastern two-thirds of the U.S.<\/p>\n
Forty JEA team members, including 37 electric line workers and three fleet support staff, left around 7 a.m. Friday for Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. They will support Santee Cooper, a public power utility serving South Carolina\u2019s Atlantic Coast region.<\/p>\n
The crews are part of a larger mutual aid response that includes 15 public power utilities from across Florida.<\/p>\n
The storm is expected to bring extreme cold and possibly icy conditions\u2014weather that presents unique challenges for utility workers in the Southeast.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know the weather conditions are going to be adverse,\u201d said Clay Cook, one of the JEA crew members who deployed.<\/p>\n
Cook told News4JAX reporter Briana Brownlee<\/a> and photojournalist Jesse Hanson that crews were traveling ahead of the storm to make sure they are in place to help restore power quickly if needed. <\/p>\n Ice storms can significantly increase the risk of power outages, weighing down power lines and making travel and restoration work more dangerous. <\/p>\n Officials across the eastern two-thirds of the U.S. have been sounding the alarm<\/a> about the potential for freezing rain to wreak havoc on power systems. In the South, especially, losing electricity doesn\u2019t just mean the lights going out. It means losing heat<\/a>.<\/p>\n RELATED: Why freezing rain has millions at risk of losing power \u2014 and heat<\/a> | Texas and Oklahoma brace for snow and ice as winter storm barrels toward eastern two-thirds of US<\/a><\/p>\n That\u2019s because a majority of homes are heated by electricity in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.<\/p>\n Ice storms are especially punishing, experts say, because of what happens after they move out: Crews struggle to reach damaged lines on ice-covered roads; cold, wet weather takes a toll on workers; and problems can linger for days as ice-laden branches continue to snap.<\/p>\n JEA crew member Cook said preparation is key before heading into those unfamiliar conditions.<\/p>\n \u201cIce storms have their own challenges,\u201d he said. \u201cWe aren\u2019t really used to that in the South; we don\u2019t really get ice. We take a day to stock the trucks up and make sure we\u2019re paying attention to the typical safety stuff we do on a day-to-day basis, and just be ready.\u201d<\/p>\n JEA Managing Director and CEO Vickie Cavey said the deployment reflects the strength of the public power mutual aid network.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are honored to assist a neighboring community when they need us most,\u201d Cavey said. \u201cThis is what it means to be part of a national network of public power utilities\u2014working together to restore power and support recovery.\u201d<\/p>\n The Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/p>\n Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 JEA crews headed north Friday morning to assist with potential power restoration efforts as a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":129347,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[502,116,118,117,501,221],"class_list":["post-129346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-community","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-jea","tag-weather"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129346\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}